Another Distilling Process

Another traditional Bulgarian rakia-making process was experienced this week. Rakia in case you didn't know is what everybody calls 'Bulgarian brandy.'

Fruit flavour is it unique charatoristic quality unlike many other liquors from around the world,

The most common is plum, (sliva) or grape (grozda), but around Silistra where I am this week apricot is extensively used.

We were to distill around 100 litres or so in one of the rakia houses which keep the boiling systems. A very interesting process took place before my very eyes as most things are in Bulgaria.

The process itself has very little to do with the end result, the key to success is the previous fermentation. Once the wine and pulp go into the boiler some folk add sodium bicarbonate to avoid the acid taste. Other than that you're faced with getting on with what you've grown. Good or bad rakia depends on the source of the liquid prior to distillation.

The boiler is called a kazan with the distillery being used a good sized building just outside of town.

These kazans thorughout the rakia making season have a very busy schedule. All four of its distillers are in constant use through the autumn months.

We had to wait for four groups of rakia makers to finish their distilling before we could begin. Outside was hot and inside was even hotter with the four fires burning under the boilers.

After a while we hauled two big plastic barrels full of the 'wine' pulp up near the door and carried in a good pile of wood. The kazan's manager, cleaned out the boiler we were going to use by popping open the lid and shoveling all of the previous remains remaining out through a hole in the back. The gournd outside where is travels to was covered with steaming pulp amongst the older remains of previous pulp. Apparently, this pulp gets mixed with other fertilizers and then recycled back into the soil.

The 'wine' pulp was passed into smaller buckets and carried up into boiler by a chain of helpers. The manager closed it up when full and more wood was put onto the fire below.

The waiting starts for the first drops of Bulgaria's National drink.

Distilling 'bad wine' into liquor is one of the things that I can't imagine ever being invented. Imagine some Bulgarian chaps sitting around drinking wine then one says "You know, what, I'll bet if we took this here wine and boiled it. Then we could make the steam travel through some cool water to turn it back to liquid, we'd get drunk a hell of a lot faster on the end result".

Whisky gets its taste from the oak it sits in and the water it's made from, vodka's on the other hand is just tasteless vodka, but rakia gets its taste from the fruit. So really, it doesn't matter what you do to the stuff before or after you distill it, it will still taste of the fruit.

After much talk about the qualities of rakia is was found that storing rakia in wood wouldn't change the taste that much, but it would change the colour.

Storing it in plastic is just as good, and cheaper, so being Bulgarian the cheaper more parctical way it the way it is done.

It's the fruithat makes it unique among most of the alcoholic beverages you can get in and around Bulgaria. Bulgarians could never make whisky for the very simple reason that no Bulgarian on earth would have the patience to sit and wait a year or two for it to mature.

Some 30 minutes after the boiling started the first drops of rakia are now running out of the distiller. The manager shoveled some of the burning wood, now blakened from the fire into the resident kazans barbecue. There were sausages and bread being brought out and we went outside and cooked up some dinner with the very fire that was boiling the rakia. Bulgarian sausages are magnificent and were cooked perfectly as we cleared the lot with a loaf of bread. Did we test the rakia alonside the food? Yes we did.

It tasted strong enough at around 60% alcohol of rthe first batch no wonder. Fromt he first to the last it can start at 70% then right down to 25%. the whole mix coning out at around 40-55% The rakia we made today after a 5 hour stint came out at 40%, not a record breaking session by any means but a degree of satisfaction was felt with the 17 litres of 40% alcohol.

Until the next time, as the anticipation of further distilling on the cards when the sliva ripens in a few weeks and then the grapes are processed during October to November. The next batch will be the best ever they promised themselves. Well last year was a disaster for most crops this year looks very good. We will see.





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